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8061 ‘12 ‘NYE ‘Ld 
"AN ‘asnoerds 


L161—H41 


SIDYeV YT 
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E. FORREST, Adjutant Genpra? 


Sons of Confederate Veterank 


MEMPAIS TERN. 
CONFEDERACY 


AFTER 
JULaw 4, 1863 


9 


AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED BY 
MR. C. P. J. MOONEY 
YN 5 ge Is 
MEMORIAL DAY EXERCISES 
IN MEMPHIS 
NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTEEN 


MEMPHIS 


WANTS THE 


VETERANS 
IN 1915 


PUBLISHED BY THE 
CONVENTION DIVISION 
OF THE 


BUSINESS MEN’S CLUB 


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29 Ap 18 a7; 


THE CONFEDERACY AFTER 
JULY 4, 1863 


“This is to many of you a day of memory 
and tears. We are gathered here to pay 
tribute to those who died and to do honor to 
those Confederates who live and to the cause 
for which they fought. 

‘““The war is a half century gone. Another 
generation, whose members are now in the 
noonday of life, has been born since the flag 
of the Confederacy was furled. The living 
Confederate soldiers, the youngest of them, 
are around three score and ten. 

“T desire to-day, with your permission, to 
call your attention to certain lessons of this 
war which are now being studied by the philos- 
ophers of history and certain facts in the 
struggle to which military experts are giving 
close attention. 

“To the student of history, to the student 


‘af war and to the student of the endurance 


of men, the history of the Confederacy pre- 
sents some striking problems. 

‘““Those who are in the midst of things often 
fail to see that chain of incidents which turns 
the currents of human actions. The contem- 
porary is not a good historian. He is inter- 
esting in writing his experience and his me- 
moirs. 

“*T think this is a time when men who study 
the progress of government and the progress of 
civilization should begin to give attention to an 
analytical discussion of the history of the 


Confederacy and begin to draw from it con- 
clusion, in which they may be greatly as- 
sisted by those Confederates and those Fed- 
erals who survive. 

“The history of the war has not yet Been 
written. But when the commentator fin- 
ishes his study of the Confederacy he will 
give to the world a story of the most marvel- 
ous struggle that men ever sustained. 

“And he will wonder how it were possible 
for the Confederacy to maintain itself from 
July 4, 1863, until the disbanding of Lee’s 
army at Appomattox in the spring of 1865. 

“What matchless quality was it that en- 
abled the soldiers of the lost cause to carry 
the Confederacy aioft upon the points of 
their swords through the year 1864? 

““The climax fact of the Confederacy is its 
duration. With your permission I will 
briefly discuss certain things in that period 
of the Confederacy when by all af the rules 
of war the trial of strength should have been 
over. 

‘To my mind the fate of the Confederacy 
was sealed at Vicksburg and ‘Gettysburg. 
Then let us see how it was, and why it was 
that this titanic. struggle lasted 22 months 
longer. ee 


Hour of the Supreme Striiggle 


“Fifty years ago this month the Confed- 
eracy was in the supreme struggle for its life. 

“The strongest of the fortified places on 
the Mississippi held by the Confederates was 
Vicksburg. In the month of June, 1863, 
Pemberton was shut in and Grant’s army 
was pressing him from the east. The Fed- 
eral gunboats were sending their messages of 
death into the beleaguered city from the 
reaches of the river. The Confederates had 
not lost hope of relieving Pemberton by an 
attack from toward Jackson. During the 
warm days of that terrible June, Grant, hav- 
ing learned the foolhardiness of direct assault, 
set down to the less brilliant but more effect- 
ive method of a sustained siege. The Fed- 
erals held the river at New Orleans and above 
Vicksburg. Johnson could not draw enough 


4 


men away from the lines that protected the 
Confederates’ northern outposts in Alabama 
and Georgia to give him strength that would 
enable him to strike Grant in the rear. 

“The spirit of the men within the trenches 
at Vicksburg was the same spirit that was a 
peculiar mark of the Confederacy. ‘Those 
who had studied the rules of war knew that 
in the end there must be a surrender. All 
during this month of June they fought on 
with the same steady valor that marked the 
Confederate whether he was charging to vic- 
tory or defeat. 

“In the east the Federals were uneasy. 
In -every pitched battle, except that of 
Sharpsburg, they had been beaten. Each 
side claims a victory at Sharpsburg. The 
student of history will probably call it a 
drawn fight, for while McClellan held the 
field and Lee withdrew, the Federal com- 
mander did not pursue him. McClellan was 
censured for this by the editor-generals of the 
north and by the politicians who fought the 
war from the safe recesses of the speakers’ 
stand at barbecues. McClellan gave up his 
command and those who followed him, when 
they did attack toward the end of the year, 
saw their armies cut to pieces on the heights 
of Fredericksburg. 

‘“‘Another general, in the fall of ’63, did 
what McClellan did in the fall of ’62, but he 
was not blamed. Grant, however, had a 
victory to his credit; McClellan had none, 
only a drawn fight. The forces under Grant 
beat Bragg’s army at Missionary Ridge, but 
the Federals did not follow up the fight until 
April of the next year. Grant in the mean- 
time was transferred to Washington and the 
work. of taking up the thread of war in the 
west following Missionary Ridge was not 
begun until Sherman started to Atlanta. 

Gettysburg in ’63 

“Fifty years ago to-day if the Federals 
were gaining confidence in the west, they 
were sorely troubled in the east. General Lee, 
who was far-seeing, felt that a chance for 
victory and for ultimate peace was an inva- 


5 


sion of the North. Fora month before July 3 
of ’63 his adversaries could not divine his 
purposes. ‘They felt his army, but they could 
not grapple with it. Their strategy would 
have been to have fought with him in Vir- 
ginia, but so eager were they to protect Wash- 
ington that Lee crossed into Maryland with- 
out opposition. And then the armies march- 
ed in parallel lines. Hooker was removed 
and it fell to the lot of Meade to fight Gettys- 
burg. The place was neither Meade’s nor 
General Lee’s choosing. General Lee knew 
that a great army was in front of him and that 
at some point in his march to the north it 
would lie across his path. And the Federals 
knew that a hitherto unbeaten army under 
the command of a matchless leader was 
coming headlong at them and that a victory 
would result, not from superior bravery nor 
superior marksmanship, not from the enthu- 
siasm that with courage conquers victory, 
but must come from force of numbers. 


‘You know the story of Gettysburg. The 
invading army of the Confederacy spent its 
force there. Sullenly the Confederates fell 
back. ‘Leisurely they- retracedtherm steps 
into Virginia. The Federals did not folllow. 
The Confederates may have received their 
death wound at Gettysburg, but they con- 
cealed the hurt from the adversary. 


Might Have Ended in ’63 


“By all the rules of war Vicksburg and Get- 
tysburg should have marked the collapse of 
the aggressive fighting strength of the south. 
The Confederate States were cut in two by 
Federal armies commanding every bend of 
the Mississippi River from Cairo to New 
Orleans. The Federals had driven their line 
down to North Mississippi to the Tennessee 
River and to Chattanooga. Following Vicks- 
burg and Gettysburg an offer of a settlement 
might have been made. Jefferson Davis, the 
head of the Confederacy, might have said, 
‘We have fought a good fight. The fortunes 
of war are against us. What have you to 
offer?’ 


“The Federal fleet was at the mouth of 
every river that empties into the sea. Only 
two Confederate flags were on the high seas. 
One was borne aloft and defended with a 
knightly valor by Admiral Semmes, who’s 
own daughter every year is present in this 
cemetery at this service and who to-day sits 
on this stand. Later another Confederate 
flag was unfurled on the ocean, was carried 
into every sea by a band of gallant men, one 
of whom has the honor to-day of commanding 
the uniformed Confederates sitting in front 
of us. Two Confederate ships could make 
but small progress against a fleet which 
could patrol the Atlantic coast from Maine 
to Mexico with a line of ships so close that 
one was always in sight of another. 


‘‘A cordon of Federal troops was drawn 
from Arkansas, across Tennessee and up the 
valley of Virginia. The only supplies that 
could be imported were those that came from 
intermittent landings of blockade runners. 
The Confederate soldier could have surrender- 
ed in July of ’63 and the world would have 
said he fought a good fight. 


‘‘And the leaders from that time on knew 
that the chances were against success and 
the private soldiers had little hope of ultimate 
victory. 

“T desire to suggest for your consideration 
this thought: The glory of the Confederacy 
ismineits cereat.. cs Jaint. hope for success 
was in sustaining a defensive warfare so long 
that the patience and the spirit of the north- 
ern soldier and the northern people might 
wear away. There might have been a fur- 
ther hope that conflicting political opinions 
in the North would finally divide the people 
and, aweary, they might be content to recog- 
nizesthe.@onlederacy as“agseparate entity. 
But to the glory of the Confederate soldier he 
did not trust to these forces. 


“He trusted his cause to the arbitrament 
of the sword and he was willing to decide it 
by shot and shell, by force of arms, if you 
please, and not by the indirection of diplo- 
macy. 


Victory After Defeat 


“The marvel to me is that after Gettysburg 
and after Vicksburg the Confederate soldier 
had the heart’ to fight gf <hickamaue 
And yet before the shouts of victory and joy 
had ceased in the North, because of Vicks- 
burg and Gettysburg, the Confederates 
brought a magnificent fighting machine into 
play against another Federal army, beat it, 
captured thousands of its' men and all but 
annihilated it at Chickamauga. 

“Chickamauga, I believe, more nearly 
struck terror into thé h@artssotsthe= brave 
men of the north than any other contest. 

“The First Manassas was a stampede. 
There raw soldiers were matched against raw 
soldiers. But at Chickamauga trained men 
fought trained men. Skillful generals match- 
ed their wits against equally skillful adversa- 
ries. ‘The victory, by all rules of the game, 
should have gone to the Federals. Instead 
they found themselves beaten and shut up 
in apelty. 


Grant and Sherman 


“The Confederate victory did not surprise 
Grant and it did not surprise Sherman. 
These men knew the character of their foes. 
Sherman had taught school among them in 
Louisiana and Grant had campaigned with 
them in Mexico and in the West. Sherman 
knew and Grant knew that so long as Mr. 
Davis did not give the signal to give in that 
a sense of duty would impel Lee and Johnson 
and Hood and Longstreet to press on with 
the same determination that would mark 
them if they were going to certain victory 
instead of certain defeat. 

‘There is bitterness in the South against 
Sherman. Sherman may have been bitter 
himself against the cause of the South, but 
he knew the fiber of his foe, and while he 
may have hated him for his cause, he respected 
him for his knightly valor. There was no 
hatred in the heart of Grant. He was a man 
of clear vision. In dealing with the Confed- 
eracy he weighed their valor, their determina- 


8 


tion, and in the contest reckoned on these 
qualities to cause the Confederate soldier to 
toss his life away with the same reckless aban- 
don as a boy throws away a flower. 


“Grant should have annihilated Bragg’s 
army at Missionary Ridge. He should have 
pressed that soldier so hard that Atlanta 
should have fallen at Christmas of ’63 instead 
of at the end of the next summer. 


““And while these things were happening 
in the West how fared it in the fall and winter 
of .’63 with Lee He did not escape back 
from Gettysburg into Richmond. He moved 
in orderly and stately procession. Meade 
followed at a respectful distance. Though 
he may have beaten Lee at Gettysburg his 
victory inspired in his breast no confidence 
that he might beat him again. After Vicks- 
burg and after Gettysburg the Federals 
marked time during the winter until new 
forces could be drawn up, until new supplies 
could be brought in, until new troops could 
be levied. 


The Winter of ’63 


‘“‘How fared it this winter with the Con- 
federacy There were no more troops to 
be had. A few old men and a few boys step- 
ped into the depleted ranks—just a few. No 
nation sent its countless hordes as food for 
powder through Southern ports into Southern 
armies. When a soldier on the firing line at 
Missionary Ridge or around the foothills of 
Virginia was picked off there was no one else 
to take his place. The army was reduced 
that many. Grant, the mathematician of 
war, who knew that victory would finally 
come if two went out against one, bided his 
time after he came out of the West until he 
had forces sufficient to overwhelm his adver- 
saries. ‘Then we find him moving against 
Richmond in 64, taking the same route over 
which three years previous another army 
went out from Washington on a_ holiday 
journey. Grant consumed a year in making 
that journey. His army spent more than a 
billion dollars in that journey: ‘They suffered 


9 


a loss in killed and wounded of more than 
100,000 men. On that journey from the 
environs of Washington down to Appomat- 
tox the army of Grant lost more men in killed 
and wounded than did General Lee command 
fighting men. 

“And the same summer in the West Sher- 
man began the 150-mile trip from Chatta- 
nooga to Atlanta, a journey which you and 
I can now make in a morning, and on every 
mile of that journey there was a skirmish and 
during every week of that journey there was 
a battle. It is said that Sherman lost more 
men in killed, wounded and prisoners than 
were the number of Confederates that stood 
up and responded ‘present’ to Joseph E. 
Johnson’s roll call. 


Memphis in ’64 


‘““And how fared it farther in the West? 
In our own city of Memphis, how was it? 
The Federals held the river. An army as 
large almost as were the numbers on one side 
at Shiloh was encamped in and around this 
city. They sent one expedition out after 
another and these were not mere parties of 
raiders. ‘They were armies made up of every 
desired unit—infantry, cavalry and artillery. 
And every expedition was beaten back. 
Finally, in the heat of the summer General 
Forrest’s men rode through the streets of this 
city and General Forrest himself stood at 
bay near the State Female College, which is 
only a stone’s throw from this spot. 

“And after Atlanta, when Hood’s army 
should have disbanded, instead of surrender- 
ing it became an invader. Sweeping around 
Sherman it struck out boldly for the Ohio 
River as an objective. It began the invasion 
of Tennessee and Kentucky, where a Federal 
garrison was in almost every county. 


Gettysburg and Franklin 


“This summer Confederate and Federal, 
at the invitation of the national government, 
are to meet on the hills of Gettysburg and 
join there as citizens of a reunited country 


10 


in celebrating the valor of those who followed 
Meade and those who followed Lee. Gettys- 
burg is remembered because it is dramatic. 
It was the crisis of the struggle. The eyes 
of the world were turned toward that field 
when Pickett made his charge and failed. 
The Creator never put it into the hearts of 
men to do more than did those Confederates 
who for three days gave battle at Gettysburg. 

“But let me say that the Confederate sol- 
diers at Franklin gave an exhibition of cour- 
age, endurance and daring which resulted 
in an engagement unparalleled in the history 
of warfare. ‘They assaulted an enemy as 
numerous or more numerous than themselves, 
having the advantage of being on the defen- 
sive and having the further advantage of 
temporary breastworks. And when all was 
over, major-generals and brigadiers to the 
number of six were killed. When morning 
came the Federals were crowding the thor- 
oughfares to Nashville and the Confederates 
held the blood-stained field. A victory for 
Pickett at Gettysburg might have turned the 
scales for the Confederacy. Pickett failed. 
A victory for the Confederacy at Franklin 
simply postponed the day of doom. The 
officers who led the men into that fight knew 
it. Then why such matchless valor? Why 
did men toss their lives away as though life 
was a vain and empty thing? Because this 
Civil War of ours was to be the epic tragedy 
of our country. And these Confederate sol- 
diers were determined that its climax should 
be such that through all the ages it would be 
the glory of our people. 


The Dying Confederacy 


‘““A sense of duty filled the ranks of the 
Confederacy in ’61, and that same loyalty to 
duty, that same devotion to a principle, filled 
the valleys with the graves of the dead, took 
away from wives their husbands and made 
orphans in many homes. 

“The war might have ended in ’63, but 
the men under the Stars and Bars were deter- 
mined to go on even to the bitter end, and if 
need be, each man was determined to yield 


his life. 
11 


“And how magnificently the Confederacy 
died! After Franklin a skeleton army pur- 
sued Schofield into Nashville. And Thomas, 
a cool and calculating man, tried the patience 
of Grant, who demanded that he immediately 
give battle. Grant saw at Nashville the 
strange spectacle of a well-fed, well-equipped 
army, stronger in numbers than was the 
wreck of Hood’s fighting machine, torn to 
pieces by the shock of its own victory at 
Franklin, being besieged for a month. Grant 
became uneasy. He remembered the fight 
they gave him at Missionary Ridge. He knew 
how bitterly the same soldiers contended 
with Sherman; he measured the force of their 
strength against Schofield at Franklin, and 
he feared that this army, whose ranks were 
decimated by the bullets from a hundred 
fields, might in its dying hour make its death 
memorable by destroying the army of Thomas 
in Nashville. 


“Thomas also knew the strength that was 
still there. He also knew the desperate spirit 
of a foe that fought just as well under a cer- 
tainty of ultimate failure as though it were 
marching’ to a certain victory.) he satu 
that was in the men who followed Hood into 
Tennessee was of that brand of courage that 
marks those who step from the ranks to lead 
a forlorn hope. Grant sent Logan to super- 
sede Thomas, if Thomas had not fought when 
Logan reached Nashville. When Thomas 
had made a victory certain by overwhelming 
odds of men under his flag, he gave battle. 
And even then there was no rout. Beaten 
down, Hood’s veterans retraced their steps 
southward. But there was no pursuit by 
oncoming cavalry, no sabering down of strag- 
glers. The story of the Confederate rear 
guard fighting from Nashville to the Tennes- 
see River under the direction of Walthall and 
Forrest is in itself a magnificent incident of 
this strange and matchless expedition from 
Atlanta to Nashville. 


‘“‘Sherman had an easy march from Atlanta 
to Savannah, because there were no soldiers 
in his path. It was a different story from 


12 


Savannah north. A remnant of the old army 
that fought him under Johnston and had under 
Hood fought at Franklin and Nashville, again 
crossed Sherman’s path and engaged him. 

“When Lee felt that it was no longer good 
strategy to hold Richmond, the Confederate 
army drew out of Petersburg. According to 
all the rules of war, that army should have 
been captured. And then, if you follow this 
journey from Richmond and Petersburg to 
Appomattox, you will find that every day 
when the Confederates made a stand they 
were not driven away from the field. And 
the day before the surrender at Appomattox 
the Confederates engaged in a pitched battle 
with their foe, and in that fight conducted 
themselves with the same gallantry that 
marked them at Fredericksburg and at Chan- 
cellorsville, when they were driving everything 
before them. 


Triumphant at the End 


‘““A close study of the last two years of this 
war will convince any man that it is no empty 


“boast to say that the Confederate soldier 


went down into defeat, triumphant until the 
reverberation of the last gun shot lost itself 
amid the blood-stained hills of Virginia. 


eine Old Guard, at Waterloo; after its 
charge failed, broke into disorder, and the 
army which followed the eagles of Napoleon 
at Borodino, at Eyleau, at Austerlitz, and 
never before reeled in the shock of war, when 
the knowledge of defeat came, broke into a 
wild, disorganized and frenzied mob. 

“In Virginia, in Tennessee, in Georgia 
and in Mississippi the Confederate armies 
after ’63 never lost step, never turned to the 
right nor to the left, but pressed onward into 
the valleys of death with a steadiness of pur- 
pose, with a heroic valor that is to-day the 
glory of the American citizen, no matter 
whether he be Confederate or Federal or 
born into this world when the Confederacy 
had become a memory. 

“And here we are in this marvel country of 
ours fifty years after the war, on a day of 


13 


memory for Confederate soldiers ready to 
pay tribute to the bravery of men and not 
asking on which side they fought. 

“The history of the Confederacy is a his- 
tory of the nation. The matchless skill of 
Lee, the persistence of Grant are inspiring 
to every American boy and girl, it matters 
little whether they gather in the evening un- 
der the shade of the scented magnolia or 
under the Green Mountain pines whose 
boughs tremble in response to the sigh of the 
breeze that comes from the north. 


Its Effect 


“The great Civil War gave to other nations 
in letters of fire a story of the colossal possi- 
bilities of these United States. And so long 
as we keep the memory of those in whose 
honor to-day we meet fresh in our hearts and 
in the hearts of our children, we will be in- 
spired to lofty ideals and there will be created 
in our hearts a determination that this coun- 
try of ours shall go forward and that the guid- 
ing principle of its people shall be national 
honor, the hope of its people shall be national 
glory and the determination of its people 
shall be freedom under the law and under 
the constitution. 

‘‘Honor the Confederate dead; honor the 
living Confederates, for they are the survivors 
of an army that responded to many demands 
that could be met by lofty courage and devo- 
tion to home and to country. 

‘Appomattox did not mark the close of 
the career of the Confederate soldier. From 
°65 until this good day wherever he has been 
he has borne himself as a man and as a leader 
of men. In the ashes of Confederacy’s hope 
he sat up a torch which was a signal that the 
traditions of the South should never be 
forgotten and the civilization of the South 
should be forwarded. 

“In the work of recreating the Confederate 
soldier was a leader. The imprint of the 
Confederate soldier is heavy upon the civil 
history of this country since 1865. In the 
Senate of the United States, in the lower house 


14 


of Congress, the Confederate soldier did duty 
to the south and to the common country alike. 
In the State Legislature, as governors, as 
lawyers, as judges, the Confederate soldiers 
have made their mark. 

“To-day the chief justice of the greatest 
court on earth, a court which is the guardian 
of the nation’s ark of the covenant, is a 
Confederate soldier. Another Confederate 
soldier is an associate justice. Confederate 
soldiers have been in the cabinet. ‘They have 
served as foreign ministers. When the call 
to arms came in 798 they leapt into the firing 
line. ‘They have served their people as phy- 
sicians, as teachers, as preachers, and mer- 
chants, and they have served in the hard 
occupations, at the plow and at the forge. 
Whether the Confederate soldier stands at 
the handle of the plow or raises his hand to 
administer oath to an incoming president, 
he is the embodiment of unselfish devotion 
to the work that is at hand and loyal to the 
duty that is to be discharged. 

‘“And the Confederate soldier’s day of use- 
fulness is not over. The youngest of you are 
around seventy. You are in the lean shank. 
But when you are eighty—and a few of you 
will reach that age—you will then not be in the 
way, for our grandchildren, little boys and 
girls, may then gather at your knees in the 
shadows of the dying day and hear from your 
lips the story of your part in a struggle which 
will be the glory of this nation and an inspi- 
ration to this people so long as the republic 
survives. 

“Gentlemen of the Old Guard in Gray, 
followers of Lee, Forrest, Johnson and Hood, 
I salute you.” 


15 


S.C. TOOF & CO., PRINTERS, MEMPHIS 


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